Nature’s GIFT, to ALL children, and yet, how many of you, parents, are utilizing these??? Not very many would be my guess! Translated…
I’m too grateful, to the birth of my younger grandson, to give us, grandparents more time to spend, with our older grandson, during my daughter-in-law’s month-long recovery after birth, it was a challenge, for us, to learn to get along with him without much trouble, and in order to help this five-year-old without his parents by his side adapt, we’d used, a ton of methods, including sucking up to him.
The very first day, I’d, presented him with the basket of toys I had at my house, with toy trucks, bulldozer, bouncy balls…..he’d only, touched these for a few moments, then, he’d, left them all alone, and, the few illustrated books my daughter-in-law had prepared, he’d, only taken a short glimpse, lost interests soon enough, we’d, drained our minds, to see what to give him to play. “Do you want to come with grandma to the vegetable gardens to dig up some vegetables?” “Where?”, he’d, opened his eyes wide and inquired. I took his tiny hand in mine, led him into my happy farm, and I’d, proudly presented my homegrown veggies to him, “This, is chives, baby bokchoy, cabbage………”, he’d asked me, “is it, a certain kind of bokchoy?” What? I only know it as baby bokchoy, I’m stumped now, I’d, flipped through the pages of my “manual”, wow, that, was what it was called all right! Turned out, my daughter-in-law bought an encyclopedia of known vegetables, and read along with him every night before he goes to sleep, and, it’d, instilled that love of eating vegetables in him.
children playing in the yard like this??? 
As I’d, clipped off the chives, pulled up two small stools. “Come! Help grandma sort these out!”, his mind wasn’t in it, he’d, started, arranging the vegetables, into the phonetic alphabets and the English alphabets, and he’d, called me to see, “Grandma! Look, this is my art project! This is K…this is the first phonetic alphabet………”, he’d, arranged them in a very ordered way, and, explained to me, with joy. “Wow, that’s, so amazing!”, the awes came from deep within my heart, he’d found these things that were, alive, much more fun to play with than his own plastic toys.
At bathtime in the evenings, we’d needed to climb up to the second floor, and, as he’d hopped up a step, we’d, played the games of counting, the reciting of the phonetic alphabets, the counting aloud the English alphabets, hopping up the stairs, to him, who’d always ridden up and down in the elevators, was way more fun, in forty days, he’d, already, had the phonetic alphabets, the English alphabets down pat.
There are, so many fun things to play with in the countryside, the long, slanted clothing rod, can be used as a toy slide for the pingpong balls; the larvae form of an insect that came, he’d, used his own language, to give it a funny and easy to remember name; a wild cat that’s, hopped inside our fence, locked gaze with him a long time, he’d said, “Grandma, I shall have a kitten some day, and, I will take it to the potty, and help wipe its butt clean.”
a science lesson offered by Mother Nature…
Remembered how when we were still parents, we’d busied ourselves about, and, we’d, lacked the time and the patience with our own young, and now, we’d become, grandparents, we’re, no longer pressed by time or anything else, in accompanying my grandson, seeing him grow every day, I’d realized, that there’s no need to provide them with too much toys, that everything in their environments, and everything in nature, is the best kind of toys for the young children.
And so, you’d, made up for the time you’d missed with your own young, with your grandchild now, and, in interacting with this young child, you’d, realized, that all you needed, is to spend a little more time, to play with him, to be there for me, to teach him the smallest matters in life, and, he will, surprise you, in more ways than one!